63. Vanishing #2
Marx's expression darkened at the implications. We stood in silence for a moment. Then she shifted closer, her voice still at that barely-there whisper.
"Well, they're definitely listening now. Especially after what you just pulled in there." She took another drink from her goblet to cover the movement of her lips. "Sundralis, Thais? Really?"
“Yeah…” I murmured. “Thatcher?—”
"I get it," she continued before I could defend myself. "Family first. Always has been with you."
"It's not just that." I struggled to articulate the impulse that had driven my choice. "It's... I don't know. Something feels wrong here. Thatcher told me before that there was light everywhere, yet it felt wrong. Now that I’m here, I see what he meant. It’s like it's heavy, pressing down on me."
"I figured it was supposed to be like that."
"Maybe." I stared out at the perfect gardens. "I intend to find out."
Marx nodded, accepting this without question. It was one of the things I'd come to value about her—she didn't need every detail explained, didn't demand justifications for my decisions. She simply trusted that I had my reasons.
"I'm going to miss you," she said suddenly, the words coming out in a rush.
I turned to her, squinting.
"Don't look so shocked," she muttered. "I'm allowed to have feelings, you know. Occasionally. When no one's looking."
"I'm going to miss you too," I admitted, the truth easier to offer Marx than almost anyone else. "Who else is going to call me on my bullshit?"
"Thatcher?"
"He's too nice."
"Xül, then."
My face burned before I could stop it.
Marx's eyebrows shot up. "New developments?"
"Nothing. Everything." I sighed, staring into my goblet. "I guess he’s going to call off the wedding."
Marx choked on her drink. "He's what?"
"Yes." The word still didn't feel real, even as I spoke it.
Marx studied my face with new intensity. "That's... big. Like, realm-shattering big."
"I know."
"Well, fuck." She drained her goblet in one long swallow. "I wonder how that will affect… things."
A careful response.
“I guess we’ll find out.”
"In a big way, probably," she said. "Just don't forget about me when you're busy being controversial and revolutionary, okay?"
"As if you'd let me."
"Damn right I wouldn't." She bumped her shoulder against mine. "I'll visit. Often. Even if it means putting up with all this blinding light and oppressive perfection."
"I'd like that." The words felt inadequate for what I was trying to express—how much her friendship had come to mean to me.
"Do you ever wonder—" She hesitated, then plunged ahead. "Do you ever wonder if we'll forget? What it was like to be mortal? To be afraid? To care about the small things?"
"We won't forget," I said, the words a promise. "Not you and me."
"Bold claim for someone who's been divine for all of an hour." But Marx's smile took the sting from her words.
"We're exceptional, remember? You said so yourself."
"I did, didn't I?" She grinned. "Alright, Morvaren. I'm holding you to that. A thousand years from now, you and me, we’ll meet and compare notes. See if we still remember what matters."
"Deal." I raised my goblet to hers. "Though preferably somewhere less... Sundralis."
"Draknavor beach at midnight?"
"Perfect."
We drank to seal the pact. As I lowered my goblet, a strange sensation washed over me—a sudden hollowness. The air sucked from my lungs.
I froze, my fingers tightening around the goblet so hard that cracks spider-webbed across its surface.
Something was wrong. Something was terribly, catastrophically wrong.
I reached instinctively through my bond with Thatcher—the connection that had been humming in the background of my consciousness since birth, stronger than ever after our transformation .
Nothing.
Just... emptiness. A crater where my twin should have been.
"Thatcher?" I whispered, then pushed harder, hurling my consciousness along our bond with desperate force. Thatcher!
Silence. Not even an echo.
The goblet shattered in my grip, liquid and crystal raining to the floor. Cold terror seized my chest, squeezing my lungs until I couldn't breathe.
"Thais?" Marx's voice barely penetrated the roaring in my ears. "What's wrong?"
"He's gone," I gasped, my voice cracking. "Thatcher—I can't feel him. I can't feel him anywhere."
"What do you mean?" Marx gripped my arm.
"The twin bond." My words tumbled out, fast and panicked. "There's nothing. Like he's just been... erased."
In an instant, the casual friend vanished, replaced by the warrior I'd fought beside in the Trials. "How long?"
"Just now. It just happened." I was already moving, shoving past her toward the doors. "We need to find him. Now."
We burst back into the celebration, the laughter and music now a sickening backdrop to my terror. I scanned the crowd frantically, pushing divine beings aside without caring about protocol or politics.
"Thatcher!" I called. " Thatcher! "
Nothing. Just curious glances, raised eyebrows, disapproving frowns.
"We need to split up," Marx decided.
I nodded, already moving. "He was talking to a group near the south entrance earlier. I'll start there."
"Thais." She caught my arm, her grip tight. "Could someone have somehow… disabled it?"
"If they did, they're already dead," I whispered, starlight sparking at my fingertips.
We separated, plunging into the crowd in different directions. I pushed through the mass of immortals, my new senses straining for any trace of him. Smell, sight, the feeling of air brushing past my skin—it was all intensified now.
"Have you seen Thatcher Morvaren?" I demanded of anyone who would listen, my voice growing more desperate with each repetition.
Blank stares. Shrugs. Head shakes.
My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat a desperate count of time passing without Thatcher. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. The celebration continued around me, oblivious to my growing terror.
I spotted Chavore across the chamber and pushed through the crowd toward him.
"Chavore," I said, trying to keep my voice steady despite my rising panic. "Have you seen Thatcher?"
He turned to me, his eyes unfocused and cloudy.
"Thais," he said, my name clearly an effort to recall. "You're... Thatcher's sister."
"Yes. Have you seen him? I can't find him anywhere."
Chavore's brow furrowed, his expression almost childlike in its confusion. "Thatcher? He was... here. Earlier." He gestured vaguely at the room. "After the ceremony."
"But where is he now?" I pressed, fighting to keep the desperation from my voice.
His eyes drifted away from my face. "I don't... remember." The admission seemed to pain him, a flash of awareness crossing his features.
As I turned to leave, Elysia appeared, sliding her arm through Chavore's.
"There you are, darling," she cooed, though her eyes were cold as they flicked over me. "You wandered off again. Come, everyone is waiting."
She led him away without acknowledging me further, guiding his steps with subtle pressure. I watched them go, a new kind of dread settling in my stomach. What the fuck was wrong with this place ?
I started to follow them, but three guards materialized, blocking my path. "Lady Thais," one said, his tone polite but firm. "King Olinthar has asked that all new ascendants remain at the celebration. It's tradition."
"My brother is missing," I spat.
"I'm sure he's simply enjoying the festivities in another part of the palace," the guard replied, his placid smile never wavering. "Perhaps you should rejoin your fellow gods? This is, after all, a celebration in your honor."
The calculated dismissal in his voice made my blood boil. Starlight gathered at my fingertips, instinctive and dangerous. I could incinerate all three of them where they stood. I could tear this palace apart stone by stone until I found Thatcher.
But that wouldn't help him. Not if he was in real danger.
I needed to be smarter than that.
"Fine," I said, forcing my voice to calm. "I'll return to the celebration."
The guards nodded, satisfied, and moved aside. I turned as if to head back to the main hall, but the moment they were out of sight, I ducked down a side corridor. My heart still pounded with fear, but now a cold, calculating rage had settled alongside it.
I rounded a corner, and a flicker of movement caught my eye—a shadow where no shadow should have been, crawling down an empty corridor.
I followed, instinct driving me deeper into the palace, away from the celebration and the guards. The hall grew increasingly quiet. Increasingly still.
And then I felt it—a faint, thread-thin pulse of energy. Not our bond, not exactly, but something unmistakably Thatcher. It vanished almost instantly, but it had been there. A trace. A trail.
I raced forward, my senses straining for another glimpse of him—of anything.
And then I saw it—a gleam of gold on the floor ahead. I dropped to my knees, snatching it up with trembling fingers.
Thatcher's ceremonial pin. The symbol of Sundralis.
He had been here. Recently.
"Thatcher!" I called, both aloud and through our silent bond. "Thatcher!"
Nothing. But the pin was warm in my palm, still carrying traces of his energy. I pressed it to my chest, using it to focus my senses, to search for any hint of where he might have gone.
There—ahead. A tapestry on the wall.
But it wasn't the image that drew me. It was what lay behind it—a current of air where there should have been none, carrying the faintest trace of Thatcher's scent.
I lunged forward, yanking the tapestry aside to reveal a narrow passageway carved into the stone wall, descending into darkness. Without hesitation, I plunged in, one hand summoning starlight to illuminate the way, the other clutching Thatcher's pin like a lifeline.
The passage twisted downward, the air growing colder and heavier with each step. My mind screamed warnings.
I ignored them.
The passage opened suddenly into a vast chamber. And all the golden grandeur of Sundralis vanished. This was dark and damp and made the hair on my arms prickle. At its center stood a stone dais, and upon it, a swirling, black vortex.
And it was closing.
The edges contracted even as I watched, reality knitting itself back together. But in that moment, I felt it—the faintest echo of Thatcher, a flicker of our bond coming from beyond the portal.
I hurled myself toward the dais. Thatcher?
No response. But I knew, with bone-deep certainty, that he was there. Somewhere beyond that collapsing gateway.
There was no time to find Marx. No time to get help. No time to think about what might wait on the other side.
I leapt through the closing tear, power surging around me as reality screamed in protest. The transition was violent. My body was stretched, compressed, twisted in ways that shouldn't have been possible.
Then, with a sickening lurch, I was thrown forward onto cold stone. The portal snapped shut behind me with a hiss.
I pushed myself to my knees, gasping.
Before me rose a structure—a grotesque thing of black stone and twisted metal, its spires reaching toward a sky that contained no stars, no moons, no sun—only a vast, empty nothing.
An emblem was carved viciously into the stone. A circle with a crack splitting it.
A temple. But for who?
I had no idea where I was. This place matched no realm I'd ever studied, no domain I'd ever heard described. It existed nowhere in the maps of Voldaris.
A spark at my fingertips tore my gaze down. Starlight crackled and hissed around my hands.
It had only done that once before.
At the ruins of the Primordial War.